Nineteen beautifully illustrated manuscripts from the British Library’s Japanese collections have now been made available on our Digitised Manuscripts webpage.

Detail from Aoba no fue no monogatari [The Tale of the Flute with Green Leaves]. Late 17^th century (British Library Or 13131)

All but one of them [1] are what are often called Nara ehon 奈良絵本 or “Nara picture books”.  There is academic debate as to the validity of the term Nara ehon but it is generally applied to lavishly illustrated manuscripts, produced from the mid 16^th to late 17^th centuries, of popular tales known as otogizōshi 御伽草子.  Otogizōshi are a genre of short prose narratives written primarily from the late Kamakura Period (1185−1333) until the Muromachi period (1333−1568), covering a wide range of subjects from fairy tales to war epics, Shinto myths to Buddhist legends - nearly always with an uplifting moral message.

The term Nara Ehon has only been in use since the beginning of the 20^th century and no one is certain who coined it or when.  Many scholars prefer the term Muromachi Monogatari 室町物語 or “Muromachi Period Tales” although this does not reflect the important pictorial component.  One widely quoted theory has it that the first examples of this style of illustrated manuscript were produced by artists attached to major Buddhist temples in and around Nara such as the Tōdaiji and Kōfukuji or the Kasuga Shrine.  The upheavals of the 16^th century led to economic problems for these religious centres and their in-house artists may have switched from the production of Buddhist texts and images to these more secular and, presumably more commerical, works.  Whether this derivation is correct or not, the varied quality of the extant Nara ehon suggests that not all were the handiwork of skilled artists.  Moreover, given the numbers of manuscripts produced, other centres must also have been involved.

Detail from Yuriwara daijin [Minister Yuriwaka]. Ca. 1640-1680 (British Library Or 13822, scroll 1)

Still, whatever its origins, the term is well established and has yet to be replaced by the more “correct” alternatives devised by modern scholars. To complicate matters further, Nara ehon is loosely used to refer to manuscripts in both book and scroll formats.  We should perhaps make a distinction between Nara ehon (Nara picture books) and Nara emaki (Nara picture scrolls) but even this is not straightforward as some manuscripts that started life as scrolls have subsequently been turned into orihon or concertina-style books (orihon), while some Nara ehon have been remounted as scrolls.

‘Musashino’. Ise monogatari [Tales of Ise] Chapter 12. Ca. 1520-1560.(British Library Or 904)

The manuscripts were originally digitised in collaboration with the Humanities Interface (HUMI) Project of Keio University and can be viewed on the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts webpages.  Users can search by shelfmark, title (omitting diacritics) or use the keywords ehon or emaki.  The works published are: Aoba no fue no monogatari  青葉の笛の物語 (Or 13131), Bunshō no sōshi  文正草子 (Or 13130), Genji monogatari kobota  源氏物語詞 (Or 1287), Hachikazuki  鉢かずき (Or 12885 and Or 12897), Hashidate no honji  橋立の本地 (Or 12174), Horikawa youchi monogatari  堀河夜討物語 (Or 12468), Ise monogatari zue  伊勢物語図会 (Or 904), Iwaya  いわや [岩屋] (Or 12570), Kachō fūgetsu  花鳥風月 (Or 12909), Karaito  からいと(Or 876, Or 877), Matsutake monogatari  松竹物語 (Or 13385), Shijūni no monoarasoi  四十二の物あらそい (Or 903), Taishokan  大織冠 (Or 12440, Or 12690, Or 13129), Tengu no dairi  天狗の内裏 (Or 13839) and Yuriwaka Daijin ゆりわか大臣 [由利若大臣] (Or 13822)

 

Hamish Todd, Head of East Asian Collections

 

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[1] Or 1287 Genji monogatari kotoba is an album of paintings of scenes from the Tale of Genji accompanied by calligraphy by imperial princes and court nobility.

 

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An alternative Cinderella: The girl with a kneading bowl

In a previous post, I looked at an important drawing of the Virgin of the Apocalypse that had been catalogued as Deccani c. 1640-60 by Falk and Archer (1981, no. 443) and argued that it was in fact Mughal from around 1600.  There are another nine drawings of Christian subjects from the Richard Johnson Collection described as mid-17^th century Deccani in the Falk and Archer catalogue (pp. 238-39), but on further examination it seemed harder and harder to justify describing some of them as Deccani rather than Mughal.  This is a difficult area for absolute certainty of attribution, given that we are dealing in most cases with later versions of earlier drawings.   Johnson’s postings are of no help: he was in Lucknow 1780-82 and in Hyderabad 1784-85, but Deccani paintings were freely available in Lucknow as well.  This blog will look at some more of these drawings, trying to disentangle the genuine Deccani from those that are in fact Mughal.

One of Johnson’s specific interests was in Mughal or Deccani paintings and drawings of Christian subjects, which were normally based on European engravings.  These were brought to Mughal India by the Jesuits in particular, who aimed to use such images to help in the conversion of the peoples of Asia.  Akbar’s and Jahangir’s artists painted over and copied such prints as aids in their quest for command of recession and volume and enlarged upon them in various ways without a care for the original iconography.  Although there do not seem to have been any missions sent from Goa to the relatively near Ahmadnagar or Bijapur courts, Christian prints undoubtedly found their way into the hands of these Deccani artists, as evidenced by two drawings in the Freer Gallery (Zebrowski 1983, nos. 83 and 146).  They are clearly different from Mughal treatments of Christian subjects, having a certain angularity and awkwardness about them offset by their calligraphic line or sumptuous colour, which seems typical of what to expect from such material.

Virgin and Child.  Mughal, 1620-30.  Wash drawing with added colour.  136 x 70 mm.  British Library, J. 6, 3. 

A drawing of a full-length statuesque Virgin carrying the Christ Child is catalogued by Falk and Archer as Deccani 1640-60, but the artist’s interest in naturalistic modelling of the drapery would seem to rule this out. The image is based ultimately on an engraving of the icon in the basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, such as one by Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri.   

Madonna del Popolo.  Engraving by Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri, 1560-1600.  British Museum, Ii,5.104.  © Trustees of the British Museum 

Since the icon like the engraving is only half length the artist has extended it down, perhaps basing his modelling of the draperies on a different image.  The Christ Child’s hand is raised more to touch his Mother’s face than in the print or the actual icon, where it is raised in benediction, but Mughal artists were not slavish copiers and were perfectly capable of adding extra pathos to the icon. The engraver’s modelling through the use of cross-hatching is replaced as usual in our version by a skillful use of wash.  The blue background and the green grass below were added to our drawing later in Lucknow where such additions to drawings or unfinished paintings were commonplace in order to cater to European collectors’ taste.

The Madonna del Popolo differs from the even more venerated icon called the Salus Populi Romani in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in that instead of the latter’s hieratic full face image, she had turned her face down towards the Child.  Several Mughal versions of the Salus Populi Romani as engraved by Wierix are known, including one in the St. Petersburg Album attributed to Manohar.   There seem to have been fewer versions made of our image, although another early 17^th century full length Mughal version also with the Virgin interacting with her son as in our drawing appeared at Sotheby’s 26 April 1995, lot 128 (verso), but with the Christ Child’s hand not raised so far up. 

Angels bowing down before a saint.  Mughal, 1630-40.  Wash drawing with added colour.  119 x 99 mm.  British Library, J.6, 4. 

A closely related image with simple wash modelling, again thought by Falk and Archer to be Deccani 1640-60, seems at first sight to be another image of Christian piety, but its origins are more complex.  Two angels are bowing down before a nimbate female figure carrying a book.  The kneeling angel has feathered limbs, the other hovers above the ground with bent legs.  This drawing does not seem to be based directly on an engraving, but rather on an allegorical drawing by the great Mughal artist Basawan from the 1580s.  In that drawing a winged angel bows down before a robed female figure carrying an ektara, a one-stringed musical instrument,and a bow (David and Soustiel 1986, pl. 1).  While one of his allegorical figures now in the Musée Guimet in Paris is based on the frontispiece to the Royal Polyglot Bible printed in Antwerp 1568-72, which was presented to Akbar in 1580 by the first Jesuit mission, Basawan freely adapted it, and also seems to have invented similar types of figures such as the originals of our figures and the next for which no European source has yet been found.  At some stage Basawan’s allegory was converted in the Mughal studio into a more conventional Christian subject.  The female figure has been given a halo and a book, and with her loose hair and in the absence of a veil, is presumably intended to be a saint such as St Catherine of Alexandria, one of whose symbols is a book.  As in the case of Madonna del Popolo above, background and landscape have been added in Lucknow.

An allegorical figure, perhaps intended for the penitent Magdalen.  Wash with colour.  Deccani , 1640-60.  135 by 93 mm.  British Library, J.14, 6. 

Another drawing, although closely based on an earlier Mughal allegorical study, appears this time actually to be Deccani. A robed female figure stands fervently praying upwards to the heavens in a landscape, with an altar on which are vessels and a book in front of her and a tall ewer behind her.  A sloping hillside with protruding trees closes the scene.  A very similar earlier Mughal version of this composition appeared at Sotheby’s London 2 November 1988, lot 109, with a similar but more developed landscape, attributed to Basawan 1585-90.  That figure’s hair was tied up in a chignon and a jewelled fillet with an aigrette placed round her hair as was usual with Basawan’s allegorical figures.  In our version our artist has loosened her hair so that it tumbles round her shoulders and placed a red cap sporting an aigrette jauntily on the back of her head.  Her visible ear is absolutely covered with jewelled ornaments.  The wash modelling of the draperies is somewhat perfunctory.  A certain awkwardness in the rendition of her face, the exaggeration of her curly locks streaming down her back and the over-the-top ear adornments suggests that this may indeed very well be Deccani from the mid-century.

The Last Supper.  Mughal, 1640-60.  Wash drawing with colour.  167 by 97 mm. British Library, J.6, 6 

Another slightly damaged drawing is based on a combination of prints including one of the Last Supper.  Jesus has just handed the piece of bread dipped in the dish in front of him to Judas who is standing on the right, thereby identifying Judas as he who would betray him.  The drawing shows some interesting variations, including a combination of sitting and standing disciples, from whatever European sources lie behind it. The disciples, rather less than twelve, are clothed in a mixture of Biblical and contemporary Portuguese costume.  The youthful long-haired John, often depicted leaning on Christ’s chest or shoulder in this scene, has been interpreted as a woman who is now seated on Christ’s right.  The scene is set in a courtyard surrounded by Renaissance arches capped by Mughal chajjas. Two women are at the edges of the composition, one kneeling with a document, the other raising a curtain.The disciples lean forward keen to understand the significance of what is going on.  Another almost identical, contemporary drawing was in one of Warren Hastings’s albums from the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (Sotheby’s 27 November 1974, lot 812), there called Mughal mid-17^th century, and again there seems little reason to dispute this attribution for our drawing.  No print of the Last Supper seems to include dogs, but Mughal artists often add them to any scenes with Europeans regardless of their source.

 In the Johnson collection there are two almost identical drawings showing the Christ Child lying on the ground being adored by a kneeling Virgin Mary in a moonlit landscape.  Two angels stand in adoration to the side while others hurtle down through billowing clouds from the sky above bearing musical instruments, a book and symbols.  The scene is set in the open outside a hut under a rocky outcrop, while Indian hump-backed cattle and sheep inhabit the foreground, the former standing in a stream. No European engraving appears to be directly behind this drawing, although other versions are known, suggesting that the iconography was put together in India.

The Virgin worshipping the Christ Child with angels.  Deccani , 1640-60.  Wash drawing with gold.  182 by 128 mm.  British Library, J.6, 2.fc 

The two standing angels wear short tunics as in J.6, 4 above and have feathered limbs in addition to their wings, while the flying ones have long robes.  In the second version (J.6, 1) one of the standing angels wears a leaf skirt, as if he were a Bhil.  The flying angels’ hurtling progress is found again in a somewhat later Deccani page in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, from Nusrati’s Dakhni Urdu romance Gulshan-i ‘Ishq, in which fairies descend by night to take the sleeping prince Manohar to his beloved (Haidar and Sardar 2015, no. 173).  As with the penitent Magdalen discussed above, a Mughal version lies behind this composition, such as one in the Binney collection in the San Diego Museum (Binney 1973, no. 65).  This seems to be from the early Jahangiri period, judging by the old fashioned piled up rocks in the landscape, which are echoed in the later versions.  It lacks the two adoring angels with feathered limbs, while the angels hover statically in the sky with only their heads and wings visible. Another much closer version of this subject with similarly plummeting angels is in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, this time with the standing angels of our versions, who both have leaf skirts as well as feathered limbs (Arnold and Wilkinson 1936, pl. 82).   Both our drawings and the Dublin version obviously are following the Mughal model but augmenting it, certainly with the angels and also with what appear to be large numbers of birds in the sky (or possibly bats since it is night).  What marks these drawings out as Deccani is the highly stylized tree on the right, far removed from the naturalistic tree of the Binney version, so that the original attribution sees correct.

 

Further Reading:

Bailey, G.A., Counter Reformation Symbolism and Allegory in Mughal Painting, Ph. D. thesis, Harvard University, 1996

Binney, E., 3^rd, Indian Miniature Painting from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3^rd:  the Mughal and Deccani  Schools, Portland, 1973

David, M.-C., and Soustiel, J., Miniatures orientales de l’Inde 4, Paris, 1986

Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, London, 1981, pp. 238-39

Haidar, N. and Sardar, M.,  Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015

Zebrowski, M., Deccani Painting, Sotheby Publications, University of California Press, London and Los Angeles, 1983

 

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)   

Today's guest post is by Dr Amy Jane Barnes, a post-doctoral researcher who is carrying out a study on the British Library collection of Chinese propaganda posters, as part of a Cultural Engagement Partnership with BICC, the British Inter-University China Centre. During the course of this project, she will assist the curators in cataloguing the Library’s collection of Chinese propaganda posters, as well as investigate opportunities for its digitisation and display.

Dr Barnes has a background in Asian Art History and her doctoral research looked at the collection, interpretation and display of the visual culture of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in British museums. She is the author of Museum Representations of Maoist China (Ashgate, 2014).

(Sara Chiesura, East Asian Collections)


Dr Barnes working in the Chinese section of the Library

During my three months at the British Library I aim to catalogue the Library’s collection of Chinese propaganda posters from the 1950s to 1980s and research several academic papers, as well as investigate the possibilities for digitising and making the collection more accessible to a wider audience. The project also gives me the opportunity to develop my Chinese language skills, albeit a very specialist vocabulary relating to revolutionary ideology!

The first week of the project was predominantly taken up with induction-related activities, sorting out IT access, getting to grips with collections procedures, meeting my new colleagues and investigating the collection in the British Library stores with curator Emma Goodliffe – we found lots of things we were expecting, but a few we weren’t, including an exquisite set of revolutionary nian hua (年画, “New Year’s prints”) dating from 1950. From an initial estimate of around 40 posters, we eventually located over 70. And there are many plan chest drawers still to investigate, so we may yet turn up even more!

With the formalities out of the way, towards the end of the week I started to photograph, research and catalogue the collection. The posters may be organised thematically – there are examples of public information posters, posters relating to the Mao cult, nian hua ‘catalogue’ posters, so-called ‘chubby baby’ posters and a fair number of anti-Gang of Four cartoons and caricatures. But I have begun with a group of posters which depict scenes from feature films and model operas.

For example, one of the posters in the collection, which was published by the Shanghai Revolutionary Press (Shanghai fu chu ban ge ming zu chu ban, 上海巿出版革命组出版) in 1970, depicts, in dynamic pose, the ‘proletarian hero’ Li Yuhe from the revolutionary opera Hong deng ji (红灯记) (“Legend of the Red Lantern”), one of the eight “model works” (yang ban xi 样板戏) performed in China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) (British Library ORB.99/174).

And in another, stills from the 1975 film Feng huo shao nian (烽火少年) (“Beacon of Youth”), produced by the Beijing Film Studio (Beijing dian ying zhi pian chang she zhi, 北京电影制片厂摄制), are accompanied by a synopsis of the plot (British Library ORB.99/171).

The brightly coloured and attractive poster below, for the romantic film Wu duo jin hua (五朵金花) (“Five Golden Flowers”) (1959), was quite tricky to identify at first, given its use of a highly stylised script that barely looks, but I am assured is, Chinese! This style reflects the emphasis on ethnic minority culture in the film’s plot, in which the hero tries to find a girl called Jinhua whom he had met at the same festival the previous year.In the course of the film he meets four other girls called Jinhua (See the plot summary here). Together, they are the “Five Golden Flowers” of the film’s title and are represented, on the poster, in the four roses and the flower held by the original Jinhua, who is seated on a rock at the centre of the scene. At first glance, it may not appear that film has overtly propagandist intent, but commenters have noted that the narrative supports the Great Leap Forward (1958-1961) – a programme of industrialisation and agricultural collectivisation.

Poster for the 1959 film Wu duo jin hua (五朵金花) (“Five Golden Flowers”) produced by the Changchun Film Studio (Dian ying zhi pian chang she zhi, 长春电影制片厂摄制). Poster published by the China Film Corporation (Zhongguo dian ying gong si fa xing, 中国电影公司发行). (British Library ORB.99/172).

In order to catalogue the items, I am making a record of materials, measurements and content, as well as noting down the condition of each poster and highlighting those that might need the attention of a conservator. I have also been making rough translations of the text that appears on the posters – the types of information we need in order to determine the identity of potential copyright holders, such as publishing houses and distribution companies. My knowledge of Chinese (and set of Pleco flashcards) is expanding exponentially.

Over the next few weeks I intend to continue to photograph and catalogue each item in the collection. Then begins the exciting work of researching them in depth.

Amy Jane Barnes, BICC Post-doctoral Researcher

 

The Scottish orientalist John Leyden (1775-1811), ‘the Bard of Teviotdale’, was a close friend and collaborator of Sir Walter Scott who had won renown as a poet even before he sailed for India in 1803. A prodigious scholar of Indian languages, Leyden also had a deep interest in Malay, and built up an important collection of Malay literary manuscripts which is now held in the British Library. Leyden’s Malay manuscripts mostly originate from Penang, where from late 1805 to early 1806 he spent three months convalescing in the house of Thomas Stamford Raffles. Indeed, some of the 25 Malay manuscripts in Leyden’s collection are copies commissioned by Raffles, although older manuscripts are also found. The collection is rich in prose works (hikayat) and also contains a few syair, or long narrative poems composed of four-line stanzas with the same end rhyme, including Syair Silambari and Syair surat kirim kepada perempuan. But Leyden seems to have had a particular interest in a lesser-known Malay poem called Syair Jaran Tamasa, ‘The Lay of Jaran Tamasa’.

A view of Penang from the sea. Anonymous watercolour, bound in to a copy of Norman Macalister, Historical memoir relative to Prince of Wales Island (London, 1803), presented by the author to Alexander Dalrymple. (With thanks to Nicholas Martland for first showing me this drawing.) British Library, 571.h.19.

Two manuscripts of Syair Jaran Tamasa are found in the Leyden collection; both have now been digitised. MSS Malay B 9, which is in a brisk cursive hand, was copied by a scribe named Ismail on 10 May 1804. The second manuscript, MSS Malay D 6, is clearly a direct copy of MSS Malay B 9, and reproduces Ismail’s colophon word-for-word, while noting that this copy was made for Raffles by Muhammad Bakhar. Although this second copy of Syair Jaran Tamasa is not dated, it was probably copied in Penang in April or May 1806, for on 24 May 1806 Raffles wrote to Leyden in Calcutta, ‘I likewise send you herewith per favour of Mr Patton, the remaining sheets of the Jaran Tamassa’ (Bastin 2003: 40).   

Opening pages of Syair Jaran Tamasa, copied by Ismail, 1804. British Library, MSS Malay B 9, ff. 1v-2r

Colophon of the original copy of Syair Jaran Tamasa: 'written on 29 Muharam 1219  (10 May 1804), in the year ba, on Monday, at noon; Ismail is the owner/writer of this poem' (pada sanat 1219 tahun-tahun ba pada sembilan likur hari bulan Muharam pada hari Ithnin pada waktu tengah hari akan surat ini Ismail empunya syair tamat). British Library, MSS Malay B 9, f. 103v

Colophon of the second copy of Syair Jaran Tamasa, copied from MSS Malay B 9, which reproduces Ismail's original colophon, and then continues: ‘ordered by Mr Raffles to make a copy, I, Muhammad Bakhar, wrote this poem, and with the help of God the Exalted it has been completed in full, but if there are mistakes your forgiveness is begged for me, an old man with failing eyesight’ (disuruh Tuan Raffles salin senda Muhammad Bakhar menyurat syair ini ditulong Allah ta’ala sudahlah dengan sempurnanya di dalam ini jikalau ada salah pinta tuan2 maaf akan hamba tuan orang tuha lagi mata pun cedera tamat). British Library, MSS Malay D 6, f. 67r

Syair Jaran Tamasa is one of a number of Malay literary works inspired by Javanese tales of Prince Panji, and in its first line introduces itself with the Javanese title Kakawin Jaran Tamasa. As the Indonesian scholar Poerbatjaraka noted, many of the names of characters in the Panji romances bore an animal title such as Bull, Buffalo or Horse, and the name of the eponymous hero of our story, Jaran Tamasa, means 'Horse Affected by the Darkness'. Set at the court of Majapahit in Java, our poem tells of the love between Jaran Tamasa, the youngest of three sons of the vizier Arya Senopati ('Noble Military Commander') who are adopted by the king after their parents’ death, and Ken Lamlam Arsa ('Admiration/Delight of Love/Desire'), who with pleasing symmetry is the youngest of three daughters of Temenggung Singa Angkawa ('Proud Lion'). [1]

Leyden’s papers suggest he spent some considerable time working on the Syair Jaran Tamasa. In his essay ‘On the languages and literature of the Indo-Chinese nations’ first published in 1808 in Asiatick Researches, Leyden discusses Malay works with ‘Javanese relations’, and alongside the Panji stories Hikaiat Chikkil Wunnungputti (i.e. Hikayat Cekel Waneng Pati, MSS Malay C 1 is Leyden's copy) and Kilana Perbujaya Cheritra he includes ‘Hikaiat Jarana Tamasa, or the love of adventures of a chieftain of Minjapahit, in Java, composed by Andika’ [2].  The British Library holds a number of Leyden’s manuscript notebooks, and in one (Or. 15936, f. 108v) we find a page headed ‘Jaran Tamasa’ containing explanations of phrases such as ‘Dikichip dunghin ecor mata [i.e. dikecip dengan ekor mata], glance with the tail of the eye’ , evoking the sultry atmosphere of the poem. And in the list of Leyden’s books and manuscripts, purchased after his death by the East India Company, included in item 25 is the ‘History of Tarana (sic) Tamasa, from the Malay’ [3], suggesting that somewhere – albeit presently still unidentified – amongst Leyden’s papers now in the British Library is an English translation of the Malay Syair Jaran Tamasa [4].

The heroine is introduced in Syair Jaran Tamasa: 'The youngest was named Ken Lamlam Arsa / she looked like a royal flower / planted among samandarasa flowers / fit to be worn in the hair of a god' (yang bungsu bernama Ken Lamlam Arsa / Rupanya laksana bunga rajasa / diselang dengan bunga samandarasa / patut disunting dewa angkasa). British Library, MSS Malay B 9, f. 4r

Leyden’s jottings on Jaran Tamasa, including, at top and bottom, the flowers to which Ken Lamlam Arsa is likened: 'Boonga Rijasa - a yellow flower' and 'Boongga semandarasa - a flower of a tree'. British Library, Or. 15936, f. 108v

As far as is known, the two manuscripts in the British Library are the only known copies of Syair Jaran Tamasa, which has never been published. A closer look shows that both Malay scribes appear to have struggled with unfamiliar Javanese names and words. Ken Lamlam Arsa is most likely an error for Ken Lam Arsa, heroine of another Malay Panji story, Hikayat Ratu Anom Mataram, a manuscript of which is held in the National Library of Indonesia (W 135) [5].  Muhammad Bakhar has further transformed the Javanese Arsa (spelled a.r.s) to the (more intuitive and melodious to Malay ears) Rasa (r.a.s). And while John Leyden identifies the author of the poem as Andika, this is actually the Javanese word for 'you' [6], which is written Idika by Ismail in 1804 and Indika in Muhammad Bakhar's copy in 1806.

Muhammad Bakhar was certainly a less accomplished scribe than Ismail; his hand is more stilted and shaky, and he seems to have left out three stanzas, for while in Ismail’s copy there are 1525 stanzas of four lines each, totalling 6100 lines, there are only 6088 lines in Muhammad Bakhar’s. At the end of the manuscript Muhammad Bakhar blames any ensuing mistakes on his age and his ‘failing eyesight’ (mata pun cedera). Poor eyesight must have been an occupational hazard for Malay scribes: on 15 December 1810, Raffles, newly arrived in Melaka, wrote to Leyden in Calcutta: ‘Pray send me a Dozen pair of good Spectacles that all my people may see their way clear – I have had at least half a Dozen broad hints for them’ (Bastin 2003: 51). Muhammad Bakhar's protestations fall well within the range of conventional self-deprecations of Malay scribes (see Braginsky 2002); nevertheless, Raffles should perhaps have sent to Calcutta for spectacles a bit earlier.

Notes

[1] With many thanks to Vladimir Braginsky for information on the animal form of names/titles in Panji stories.
[2]  See p.178; in fact, no prose hikayat of this name is known, only the verse form.
[3] The list of Leyden’s collections is published in the Transactions of the Hawick Archaeological Society (1911), pp. 55-6, and reproduced in Bastin (2003: 79-83).
[4] See, for example, the excitement generated by the recent 'rediscovery' in the British Library of Leyden's translations of Panjabi literary works.
[5] With many thanks to Gijs Koster for this identification.
[6] With thanks again to Vladimir Braginsky.

References

John Bastin, John Leyden and Thomas Stamford Raffles. Eastbourne: printed for the author, 2003.
V.I. Braginsky, Malay scribes and their craft and audience (with special reference to the description of the reading assembly by Safirin bin Usman Fadli).  Indonesia and the Malay world, 2002, 30(86): 37-62.
John Leyden, On the languages and literature of the Indo-Chinese nations. Asiatick Researches, 1808, 10: 158-289.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia  

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Various buildings in and around Bangkok, including four royal palaces, come from the hand of a German architect who was also a distinguished art historian and  passionate collector of Thai art. Karl Siegfried Döhring was born in 1879 in Cologne, Germany, into the family of a pastor. He passed his Abitur (German higher education entrance qualification) in 1899 in Neustettin - now Szczecinek in Poland - and went on to study architecture at the Royal Technical College in Berlin-Charlottenburg. At the same time he attended a course on art history, during which he developed a particular interest in the cultures and architectures of Southeast Asia. Döhring graduated in 1905 and in the same year applied for a post in the Siamese civil service.

Photograph of Döhring standing by a gate at Wat Chetuphon, Bangkok. He admired the fact that the gate was made from granite in a style showing baroque architectural influences. From Döhring’s book Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam, second volume of plates, plate 114. British Library, 7818.pp.8

From 1906 to 1909 Döhring was an engineer in the Royal Siamese railway department where he helped to design administrative buildings for the department and rail stations for the Siamese provinces. Two of his rail stations still exist: Thonburi station in Bangkok, originally built in 1900, had a building with welcome hall designed by Döhring added in 1909 (the building was destroyed in WWII but then rebuilt in the style of the European expressionist brick architecture, now part of the Sirirat Hospital), and Phitsanulok Station, which is reminiscent of the southern German half-timbered building style.

King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) had a passion for European cultures and modernisation, and it was no surprise that Döhring soon became a superintendent, architect and engineer at the Siamese Ministry of Interior. In September 1909 King Chulalongkorn nominated him as his First Architect. Prince Dilok Nabarath, who had studied in England and Germany, commissioned Döhring to build a new palace in a simple, inexpensive European style, including decent quarters for servants. Other members of the royal family also commissioned buildings for various purposes. For Queen Sukhumala Mahasiri Döhring designed an elegant palace in the Art-Déco style, while at the request of King Chulalongkorn, he designed a palace in Phetchaburi, Phra Ram Rachaniwet, which was only finished in 1915, five years after the king’s death. With this palace, the Art Nouveau style was introduced in Siam. Other important designs by Döhring are Wang Varadis and Tamnak Somdej, both located in Bangkok.

Döhring returned to Germany when his first wife suddenly passed away in 1911. In the same year, he submitted his dissertation about the Phrachedi in Siam at the Royal Saxon Technical College in Dresden and obtained his first Ph.D. degree. In 1912 he returned to Siam, and his scope of responsibilities broadened. He was involved in the architectural planning of the first university in Siam, Chulalongkorn University.

Photograph of a statue of the fasting Siddharta Gautama which was inspired by a similar statue in the Greco-Buddhist art style in the collections of the Lahore Museum. This statue is held at Wat Chetuphon in Bangkok. From Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam, second volume of plates, plate 180. British Library, 7818.pp.8

At the same time, Döhring was also supervisor for research on Thai antiquities, a task that took him on expeditions to ruined cities in northern Siam. Due to a severe illness he had to return to Germany again in 1913, but he used this time to obtain two more Ph.D. degrees (in archaeology and art history at the University Erlangen, and in law at the Royal University Greifswald). An updated and extended version of his dissertation on Buddhist temples in Siam was published in three volumes in 1920 by Asia Publishing House (Bangkok) and Vereinigung Wissenschaftlicher Verleger Walter de Gruyter et al.

Photograph of a library (ho trai) at Wat Rakhang in Bangkok Noi. From Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam, first volume of plates, plate 77. British Library, 7818.pp.8

World War I and the subsequent economic crises prevented Döhring from ever returning to Siam again, but his passion for Thai art remained. In 1918 he gave up his work as an architect and dedicated his time mainly to research on Thai art and art history. His publications “Art and art industry in Siam” (ca. 1915), „Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam" (1920), and „Siam" (1923) were among the first illustrated scholarly researches into areas of Thai art such as lacquer, mother-of-pearl and porcelain works, manuscript furniture, textile art, funeral art, and theatre costumes. Part one of his book Siam provides illustrated descriptions of the country and its people with topics like family, law, water ways, funerals, life at the royal court, music and theatre. Part two looks at fine art and examines art symbolism, the role of the Ramakien, architecture, painting, wood carving, ceramics, lacquer and mother-of-pearl works, mosaic art, and textile art.

Photograph of a wooden funeral carriage with the gilt and lacquered urn of Prince Urupong. From Döhring’s book Siam, part 1, p. 130. British Library, J/10152.tt.26.a

Döhring’s most impressive publication is perhaps his Art and art industry in Siam which was edited under the instructions of the Royal Siamese government and published by Asia Publishing House (Bangkok). The book - consisting of two large volumes (measuring 49 x 62 cm) - is a work of art itself: printed by letterpress, with unique handcrafted metal plates showing a scene from the Ramayana on both front covers. It contains high quality images and descriptions of Thai lacquer designs in black and gold, and was, at the time, the leading work on Thai lacquer art.

Handcrafted metal plate on front cover of volume 2 of Döhring’s Art and art industry in Siam. British Library, X.946

Detail from a side panel of a manuscript cabinet in the National Library in Bangkok. Art and art industry in Siam, volume 2, plate 39. British Library, X.946

Döhring was a passionate collector of Thai antiques and works of art and handicrafts. From his stays in Siam he brought back several Thai manuscripts, manuscript chests, lacquer works, porcelain and other items which are now held in the collections of the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Eleven manuscripts that are held in Leipzig, which mainly contain literary, medical and legal texts, were described by Klaus Wenk in 1968. Under the pseudonym 'Ravi Ravendro' Döhring wrote novels and translated books by Edgar Wallace into German. Döhring passed away in 1941 in Darmstadt.


Photograph of a wooden manuscript chest, outstandingly carved and decorated with gold on black lacquer, one of the items Döhring brought back from Siam and held at in the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig. From Döhring’s book Siam, part 2, p. 69. British Library, J/10152.tt.26.a

References
Döhring, Karl: Art and art industry in Siam (2 volumes). Bangkok: Asia Publishing house, ca. 1915
Döhring, Karl: Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam (3 volumes). Bangkok: Asia Publishing house et al., 1920
Döhring, Karl: Siam (2 volumes). Munich: Georg Müller Verlag, 1923 (published in  the series Der Indische Kulturkreis in Einzeldarstellungen, edited by Karl Döhring)
Krisana Daroonthanom: Das architektonische Werk des deutschen Architekten Karl Döhring in Thailand. Berlin: Logos Verlag, 1998
Somchat Chungsiri’arak: Rāingān kānwičhai sathāpatyakam khǭng Khārl Dư̄ring = The works of Karl Siegfried Döhring, architect. Nakhon Pathom: Silapakon University, 1997
Voss, Waltraud: Von Dresden in die Welt. Frühe Promovenden der TU Dresden in Wirtschaft, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft. Dresden: TUD Press, 2010
Wenk, Klaus: Thai-Handschriften (2 volumes). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1968

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian

Updated 19 January 2023

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One of the earliest European scientific accounts of Afghanistan is Mountstuart Elphinstone’s An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India, which was first published by Longman, Rees, & Co in London in 1815 and went through several different editions in the 19^th century.  Elphinstone’s embassy to Shah Shuja’, the King of Afghanistan (r. 1803-09) left Delhi in 1808 and proceeded via Bikaner, Bahawalpur and Multan, wishing to avoid the territory of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.  Beyond Bikaner they entered the remains of the Afghan empire created by the Shah’s grandfather Ahmad Shah Abdali, and as they journeyed north along the Indus they met there increasing numbers of Afghans.  The Shah was waiting to greet them in Peshawar, his winter capital.  The embassy is described in the first chapter of William Dalrymple’s recent The Return of a King (2013).  This blog is not concerned with the political motivation and results of the embassy (Shah Shuja’ was in fact dethroned in 1809, but was reinstated by the British in 1839 with disastrous consequences), but rather with the artists who must have accompanied it.  Elphinstone’s book contains ten illustrations of various Afghans in different costumes, which must have been done by Delhi artists accompanying the embassy in the period 1808-10.

In 1993 the British Library acquired an album containing the original drawings for all ten of the Delhi-school illustrations of Elphinstone’s work (now numbered Add.Or.4670-79).  The album (numbered WD4317) also contains four watercolours by Robert Melville Grindlay of visiting Afghans done at Poona in 1813, which also were published in Elphinstone’s book.  Grindlay, a Bombay Army man, subsequently founded the banking firm of Grindlay & Company in Bombay.  He was a skilled amateur artist and aquatints were made from his drawings for Scenery, Costumes and Architecture, Chiefly on the Western Side of India (London, 1826-30).  In 1813 Grindlay was given leave to accompany Lady Hood in a sketching expedition across peninsular India and stopped two months in Poona, where Elphinstone, after a year writing up his official report on the Afghan embassy, had been appointed Resident at the Peshwa’s court (1811-18).  There Grindlay drew the four portraits of local Afghans that were added to the drawings portfolio and sent off to the publisher in London with Elphinstone’s text.  In 1834 when in London and visiting the publisher, Grindlay was given back all the drawings, which he mounted up into this album along with other supplementary material and then subsequently offered it to Lord Elphinstone in 1865 when a biography of Mountstuart Elphinstone was being prepared after his death in 1859.

Seven of the drawings are of the greatest interest as evidence of the emerging naturalistic style of Delhi artists in the early 19^th century.  The other three are more conventional equestrian portraits of court officials and do not concern us here (these are published in Dalrymple 2013).  Four of the paintings are by the one Delhi artist, c.1810.  These are highly competent drawings making use of a naturalistic pose against a plain ground.  Their clothes are softly modelled over their forms, textiles are rendered naturalistically, and flesh in a softly stippled technique.

A Khojeh of Uzbek Tartary. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 18.5 by 11 cm.  Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl. X, opposite p. 469.  Add.Or.4670

Elphinstone notes that the portrait represents ‘Mahommed Hussun, a native of Wurdaunzye near Bokhaura, whose father was an Uzbek and his mother a Syud’.  The natural swing of the unfastened coat is admirably caught by the artist, who has also added a stylized shadow of a sort that can be seen in all these drawings.

A Taujik in the Summer Dress of Caubul. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 20 by 11.75 cm. Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl. IV, opposite p. 434. Add.Or.4673

The Tajik’s clothes are fully detailed and their patterns modulated to fit over his body.

Man of the Tymunee Eimauk. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 19.5 by 12 cm.  Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl. XI, opposite p. 481.  Add.Or.4676

Elphinstone writes that ‘this is a good likeness of Kereem, a Hazaureh once in my service, but his face was more cheerful and good-humoured’.

Three more of the drawings are individually powerful portraits, by Delhi artists. 

Dooraunee Shepherd. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 25 by 16 cm.  Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl.  II (Dooraunee Shepherds), left hand figure only.  Add.Or.4671

The first of this group, a Durrani shepherd with beautifully modelled features, who stands against an uncoloured background, is a larger and more powerful version of the previous four, using the same technique and possibly by the same artist.  His subject’s upright stance, and those of the previous four, is an obvious forerunners of the work commissioned by the Fraser brothers five years later.

Dooraunee Shepherd. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 24.5 by 15.5 cm.  Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl.  II, opposite p. 239, the figure on the right only, but reversed. Add.Or.4674

The remaining two are contrasted studies, the first another Durrani shepherd still employing the conventions of Mughal painting for the subject’s face and landscape, with a more summary Europeanised treatment of the garments, and more smoothly modelled than Add.Or.4671.  He stands here against a landscape receding in belts of colour to the mountainous backdrop. 

A Khawtee Ghiljie in his Summer dress. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 20.5 by 15.25 cm.  Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl.  IX, opposite p. 443. Add.Or.4675

The second, a portrait of a Ghilzai, is the most powerful painting in the album.  He is seated on a red carpet with a diaper pattern and a white wall behind.  He has a most powerfully rendered face, but his hands and feet are perhaps less successful.  This powerful sense of a personality rather than a type, allied to the figurative stance of the other standing figures, makes these drawings the earliest so far datable portraits showing European influence on Delhi artists, several of whom must surely have accompanied Elphinstone’s embassy.  The Delhi artists would have been employed with the two official surveyors Lieuts. Macartney and Tickell, as the embassy also had an information gathering purpose as well as a diplomatic one.  It is also to be noted that William Fraser was in the embassy, as was according to Hodson’s Officers of the Bengal Army (although unmentioned by Elphinstone) Robert Skinner, brother of James Skinner, who along with William Fraser profoundly influenced the stylistic development of Delhi artists.  Some of Fraser’s letters home describing Elphinstone’s embassy are published in Dalrymple 2013, ch. 1.

Page from the Fraser Album.  Three villagers standing on a hillside, Mohan Lal, diwan of Nawab Zabita Khan Bhatti, Muhammad, a barber, and the tax-gatherer Salotar.  By a Delhi artist, 1815-19.  Watercolour;  31.4 by 42.2 cm.  Add.Or.4058

We can see the results in one of the pages commissioned by William and James Baillie Fraser, in which the three men are depicted in the same casually relaxed attitude as Elphinstone’s Afghans, feet splayed, and with miniscule shadows, linked together by a fictitious landscape.  Although this album does not solve the problem of the emergence of the Delhi Company style, it proves that it was already in existence by 1810; and that artists capable of painting in a Europeanised naturalistic manner were known to Fraser before his brother James Baillie’s arrival in Delhi in 1815, which set the two brothers off in their commissioning of studies of local people.  The artistic capacity to do so was already in existence.

 

Further Reading:

Mildred Archer and Toby Falk, India Revealed: the Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35, London, 1989.

William Dalrymple, The Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan, London, 2013

Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and its Dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India, London, 1815.

J.P. Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire – Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, London, 2012, ch. 4.

 

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

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The highlight of most wedding ceremonies is two people making their vows to each other by promising to be true to each other ‘for better, for worse … till death us do part’. But what happens when they die? Where does all the eternal love sworn by innumerable couples go? We first explored the subject in East Asian ghoulish images & stories last year; this year we concentrate on one particular story to investigage the possibilities of love after death.


A lover heading for an assignation escorted by a maid holding a peony lantern. Taisō, Yoshitoshi 大蘇芳年.  “Botandōrō ほたむとうろう” from the series Shinkei Sanjūrokkaisen 新形三十六怪撰 Tōkyō: Matsuki Heikichi東京 : 松木平吉, 1889 - 1898. Nishikie print. National Diet Library
 
Otogibōko 伽婢子 (1666) by Asai Ryōi 浅井了意 , a pioneering early modern Japanese work of terror and wonder, contains 68 stories mainly inspired by ghost and supernatural stories from the Asian mainland. Not only did the author translate the story lines into Japanese, but he localised situations to meet the expectations of Japanese popular fiction readers in the early Edo era.  Although a number of episodes in Otogibōko fired the imaginations of later authors, perhaps the most loved story is ‘The Peony Lantern’ (Botandōrō 牡丹灯籠), which originated in China as Mudan deng ji牡丹燈記as a part of ‘New stories told while trimming the wick’(Jian deng xin hua 剪燈新話).
 

Volumes 1-3 of a 16-volume set of Otogibōko.  Asai Ryōi 浅井了意. Otogibōko 伽婢子. Kyōto: Nishizawa Tahē 京都：西澤太兵衛, 1666. British Library, 16107.c.45

This is the story of a young widower, Shinnojō新之丞, who re-encounters his beautiful beloved without realising that she has in fact already died. His neighbour hears the young couple cheerfully chatting and laughing, and accidentally sees that Shinnojō is with a skeleton. He warns Shinnojō that he is in danger, and strongly urges him to find out the true identity of the woman he believes to be his newfound love. In the end, Shinnojō finds the grave of his lover and faces the shocking truth that she is indeed a ghost, and realises that he must not contact her any more.
 

Shinnojō and his lover, who is actually a skeleton. Otogibōko. British Library, 16107.c.45, vol. 3, f. 16r

Shinnojō is given a talisman (ofuda お札) by a Buddhist monk in order to protect his house from the dead. After about fifty quiet nights have passed, Shinnojō goes to see the monk to thank him for his protection. He thinks he is safe, but on his way back home he passes close by the woman’s grave and starts thinking of her again. Suddenly she appears and captures the unprotected Shinnojō whom she blames for betraying all her devotion and true love.  Later his body is found with the skeleton in her grave.
 

His ghost lover captures Shinnojō. Otogibōko. British Library, 16107.c.45, vol. 3, f. 21r

San'yūtei Enchō I 三遊亭 圓朝 (1839-1900) wrote a rakugo 落語 version of this story and titled it Kaidan Botandōrō 怪談牡丹燈籠. Rakugo is a highly distinctive genre of comic monologue performed by professional storytellers, rakugo-ka 落語家. Enchō I added more episodes which extended the story lines of the Botandōrō , renaming the hero as Shinzaburō新三郎 and the ghost heroine as Otsuyu お露 and relocating the setting from Kyōto to Edo. Enchō I’s adaptation was later translated by Lafcadio Hearn as ‘A Passion of Karma’ in his book In Ghostly Japan.
 
One of the added highlights of Enchō I’s version is ‘The scene of removing the protective charms’, ofuda-hagashi お札はがし. After Otsuyu’s true identity as a dead woman is revealed, Shinzaburō barricades his house with the talisman or ofuda and constantly keeps his protective golden statue of the Buddha close to him. Otsuyu continues grieving over her separation from Shinzaburō because of the ofuda and becomes very angry. Otsuyu plots against Shinzaburō by bribing a pair of his servants to swap his golden statue of the Buddha for a copper one, and removing the ofuda from his house. As soon as all Shinzaburō’s protections were removed, Otsuyu merrily slips into the house and takes Shinzaburō to the world where they will never be separated again – by ending his life.
 

The ofuda is removed by the servant (seen in his right hand), and the ghosts of Otsuyu and her maid slip into the house to embrace her lover, Shinzaburō. San'yūtei, Enchō三遊亭円朝, and Suzuki Kōzō 鈴木行三 (eds.). Enchō Zenshū: 2 円朝全集 : 第2巻. Tōkyō: Shun'yōdō 東京 : 春陽堂, 1928. National Diet Library

An interesting difference between the two versions is the way in which the hero is captured by the ghostly woman.  In the earlier version, the ofuda is not removed, and as long as the hero stays inside his house with the protection of the talisman, he is safe. In the later version however, the talisman is secretly removed by someone else, allowing the ghost to slip into the house.

Ofuda of Tsuno Daishi角大師, one of a collection of approximately 300 Japanese ofuda in 5 albums. Early Meiji period (ca. 19th century). British Library, 16007.d.1

Shown above is an example of a famous talisman or ofuda to protect people within a house by sticking it on the outside of the entrance door, and thus preventing all evil spirits from entering the house. This figure, called Tsuno Daishi角大師, meaning the Horned Master, is an avatar of Ryōgen 良源. Ryōgen was a high-ranking Buddhist monk in the 10th century. In the legend of Tsuno Daishi, Ryōgen dared to transform himself into a powerful demon in order to defeat evil spirits by scaring them off.  Tsuno Daishi protects people as if he is fighting in the front line in the war between Good and Evil. Therefore the ofuda used in the Shinzaburō’s house could well have been of Tsuno Daishi.
 
It is said that true love never dies. However, it could cost the lover’s own life as well….
 

The graves of Otsuyu and her maid with their peony lantern. Lafcadio Hearn,  In Ghostly Japan. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1899. British Library, 08631.f.6.

References

General information on Rakugo:
Shinji, N. "Rakugo: Japan's Talking Art." Japan Echo, 31 (2004): 51-56.

How to place ofuda:
Gofu 護符 Kawagoe Daishi Kitain 川越大師　喜多院

About Ryōgen & Tsuno Daishi:
Hazama, Jikō 硲慈弘. Densetsu no Hieizan 伝説の比叡山. Kyōto: Ōmiya Shoten 京都: 近江屋書店, 1928, pp 67-69. National Diet Library

Yasuyo Ohtsuka, curator for Japanese 

Today's guest post is by Sarah Allan, Burlington Northern Foundation Professor of Asian Studies at Dartmouth College, Chair of the Society for the Study of Early China and Editor of the Society’s journal, Early China. Professor Allan worked extensively on the Couling-Chalfant collection of oracle bones at the British Library and, together with Li Xueqin and Qi Wenxin, compiled a catalogue of the oracle bones collections in Great Britain.

Some oracle bones from the Couling-Chalfant collection are now on display in the Library’s Treasures Gallery until January, as part of the exhibit Beyond Paper: 3000 Years of Chinese Writing.

(Sara Chiesura, East Asian Collections)

The Couling-Chalfant collection or oracle bones and its fakes

In 1899, a Chinese scholar, Wang Yirong 王懿荣 was examining the “dragon bones” in his medical prescription before they were pounded into powder and noticed that they had what seemed to be an ancient form of writing on them. Within a few years, a few Chinese scholars had begun to collect these inscribed bones. By 1904, the Western missionaries, Frank Chalfant (1862-1914), and Samuel Couling (1859-1922) began to collect them too. The sellers refused to divulge where the bones were found, but in 1914, the source was traced to Yinxu 殷墟, “the Remains of Yin,” near Anyang in Henan Province. Yin is another name for Shang, an ancient Chinese dynasty, and when the site was finally excavated in 1928, the last capital of that dynasty was discovered. Current archaeological evidence suggests that the Shang ruled from this site from about 1300 to 1050 BC, so the name of the site reflected a cultural memory that had lasted some 3,000 years.

The inscribed “dragon bones” include turtle shells (primarily the undershells) as well as bones (primarily ox scapula), as the Chinese name, jiagu 甲骨denotes. The English popular name, “oracle bones” reflects the fact that they are primarily divinations intended to ensure that the ancestors were satisfied by the offerings made by the Shang king and would favor the activities of him and his people. The writing is the direct antecedent of modern Chinese characters and it was already a fully developed system, using the same principles of character formation as later characters. Nevertheless, it was not easy to decipher.

Oracle bone (turtle plastron) from the Couling-Chalfant collection. All characters appear to be genuine (British Library Or. 7964/1509 recto and verso, Ying 597)

The divinations usually start with two characters that denote a day in a cycle of sixty. This cycle is made up by correlating a cycle of ten characters, later known as “heavenly stems” and a cycle of twelve characters, later called “earthly branches.” I have hypothesized that these were the names of the ten suns and twelve moons in Shang mythology. The names used to designate the royal ancestors also included one of the ten sun-names and offerings were made to them on the corresponding day, with the most ancient ancestor listed first. Thus, once these characters were deciphered, it was possible to establish a genealogy of the royal ancestors and these ancestors corresponded generally to the list of Shang kings found in the transmitted histories.

Part of the Couling-Chalfant collection was acquired by the British Library in 1911. At that time, the writing was still in the early stages of decipherment. Fake inscriptions began to be produced very soon after people began to purchase the bones. About 90% of Shang oracle bones are blanks: a divination was made by applying a hot poker to a prepared hollow, which produced a crack on the opposite side, but no writing was engraved on the shell or bone. Other bones had empty spaces. Since the price was calculated by the number of characters, the peasant who found it or seller often added characters. An example, is Or.7694/1517 (Ying 英 600). This bone has at least two genuine characters that are written very faintly, a common notation on cracked bones that is not well understood but means something like “two reports” (er gao 二告). It also has one line that makes sense and may be genuine. This is the fifth line from the left in the main block of characters. It says, “if the king goes to inspect the region of (name), he will receive [divine favour]. The other characters are copies of ones found on genuine oracle bones, but because the forgers did not understand the script, they don’t make sense.

Oracle bone from the Couling-Chalfant collection with both genuine and fake inscriptions (British Library Or. 7964/1517recto, Ying 600)

Another example of oracle bone from the Couling-Chalfant collection with both genuine (at the top) and fake (at the bottom) inscriptions (British Library Or. 7964/1759 recto, Ying 1861)

Further reading:

Sarah Allan, The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art and Cosmos in Early China (State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 1991)
Sarah Allan (Ai Lan 艾兰), Li Xueqin 李學勤, and Qi Wenxin齊文心Oracle Bone Collections in Great Britain (Chinese title: Yingguo suocang jiagu ji  英國所藏甲骨集), Zhonghua shuju, Beijing, 1985 (Part I, 2 volumes) and 1991 (Part II, 2 volumes).   

Sarah Allan, Dartmouth College